


Shaking Like a Leaf

by shakeitout



Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Carolina Hurricanes, Cuddling, F/M, M/M, emotionally unstable Eric, pining Jeff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakeitout/pseuds/shakeitout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric's breaking down and Jeff is holding him together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shaking Like a Leaf

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed as per usual and I'm not really sure where this came from to be honest...it was supposed to be porn to get my Hurricanes muses flowing so I could actually update the Equipment Manager AU Eric/Cam fic, but then emotionally unstable Eric happened? I don't even know...

Jeff had fallen asleep on Eric’s couch. It happened a lot these days; they basically lived in each other’s pockets, anyway. Plus, Jeff could fall asleep just about anywhere. Lately, it was like he needed something solid, something real to anchor himself to, and clearly, that something was going to be Eric and his couch, but he wasn’t talking about it. It wasn’t just Jeff, though. It was Eric too. Jeff assumed it had something to do with Tanya, but wasn’t about to ask. He didn’t feel like that was his place. Eric had Jordy…and Jared now. And even Marc probably, now that Jeff thought about it. Eric had three brothers in the league to deal with the wife stuff, so it wasn’t any of Jeff’s business. But it **was** though, Eric was **making** it his business, with those sad eyes all the time and the defeated slump of his shoulders.

 

            That morning, Jeff couldn’t take it anymore. As he squeaked his eyes open in the soft morning glow coming through the skylights in Eric’s living room, he noticed Eric neatly folded into a ball on the gigantic armchair, scrolling through his phone.

            “Morning, man,” Jeff croaked out, his voice still scratchy with sleep.

            “Nice of you to join us, Sleeping Beauty,” Eric rolled his eyes, but then gave a small smile. Screw him, it wasn’t that late, and they didn’t have practice at all that day, anyway.

            “Shut up, I’m awake. You probably just woke up too,” Jeff yawned.

            “Nah, I’ve been up for a couple of hours.” Jeff could see the defined dark circles under Eric’s eyes. Clearly, he hadn’t been sleeping much. He looked worn down to his core. There was a definite mood change, suddenly from playful to serious.

            “Hey, uhm, are you doin’ okay, man?” There Jeff went again, making things his business. “I know it’s probably not my business, but you seem kind of worn out, and not in the usual ‘middle of the season’ way. Is there something going on?”

            Eric was silent for more than a few beats before scrubbing his hands over his face and sighing, “Tanya and I had a fight. Well there were a lot of fights, but I think this was **the** fight this time. She took the kids on a vacation; they’re in Florida at the beach. She said we both needed space or something, I don’t even know what we fought about, Skins.” Eric looked close to breaking down, like it was the first time he was saying all of this out loud.

            Jeff practically jumped out of his seat to go over and comfort Eric while sitting on the arm of the chair, landing a soothing hand on Eric’s shoulder, “Shit Eric, it’s okay. Fuck, its gunna be alright.” Eric had his head in his hands, looking at the floor.

            “And I can’t even tell Marc or Jordy or Jared. They’ll just tell me I fucked up so I have to man up. And I know I fucked up, I just need to know how to fix it. I need to know **if** I can fix it. I’ve never felt so out of fucking control, man. My wife and kids are 600 miles away, running around Disney World or something without me, and I don’t even know how we ended up here. I’m sorry to dump all this on you, man. I know I’m supposed to be the Captain, and always know what to do, but I just can’t take it anymore. I need to figure something out, and I need help.”

            “Eric, fuck, it’s fine. You know I’m always here for you; you’re my best friend. Now just tell me what happened, man. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what the fight, er, fights were about.”

            “Well, it all started at the end of last season…”

 

            Eric went on to explain, in a very roundabout way, that he and Tanya had agreed to an open relationship for a while. They always agreed that each other came first, but it seemed as though Tanya was getting busier and busier, and Eric began staying out later and later as the team fell lower and lower in the standings. Basically, they both got stressed, and needed some relief, and weren’t always available to get said relief from the other person, is what Jeff gathered.

            “It was working for a while, we both seemed happier, or maybe she was just faking it, I’m not really sure anymore,” Eric started.

            “So did you sleep with anybody during the ‘open relationship’ or was it all her?” Jeff asked.

            “Yeah, I uhm, I slept with Sid earlier in the season, the last time I saw him when we played Pittsburgh at home. They kicked our asses, and I was pissed so I told him I owed him a beer, and he came over. Somehow, we wound up getting pretty drunk, watching some made-for-TV movie, and then Tanya walked in on us making out. Luckily the kids were at her moms, but she was going to surprise me by coming home from her business trip early because we were on a home stand, and instead she saw me with my hands down Sid’s pants.”

            “So you fucked Crosby, big deal. But why was she mad? What about the whole open relationship thing? I thought you guys basically gave each other permission to do other people. Isn’t that the whole point?” Jeff asked.

            “Yeah, but she just dropped her bags by the door, grabbed her keys off the table and then said, “Don’t stop for me, boys. By all means, keep fucking on my couch. I’m going out anyway,” and then left. I was too drunk to even give a shit at the time, and just kept going with Sid.” He heaved a sigh and Jeff thought he was about to start crying, he just sounded so disappointed in himself, “When she came back the next day, after Sid had left, she started freaking out that I brought somebody back to the house. ‘What if the kids had been here, Eric! They would have seen Daddy sucking his biggest rivals dick on the sofa that they nap on!’ Blah blah blah. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have brought Sid back to the house, but I was angry and frustrated about how shitty we played, how many stupid penalties I took, and wasn’t thinking straight.”

 

            Eric’s shoulders slumped further and Jeff could tell he was about to lose it. Their put together, rock solid captain was about to break into a million pieces. He loved his family so much that this was literally killing him inside. Jeff didn’t know if it was too bold of a gesture, but he slid down onto the oversized armchair and wrapped his arms around Eric’s lean, muscular frame. Eric made this Jeff’s business, and Eric trusted him enough to tell him, after he hadn’t even told his own brothers, so damn it, Jeff was going to be bold. Clearly bold was okay, because Eric sagged into him like Jeff’s arms were the only things holding him together anymore.

“She said she couldn’t do it anymore, and that she was calling the lawyer after her and the kids took a vacation. She said she needed time to think, but that it was a long time coming. What does that even mean? I started to raise my voice a little, because I got frustrated, but then she asked me about Cam, and I freaked out.” Jeff could feel the tears seep through his thin t-shirt, Eric breaking in his arms as he told his story.

“Uhm, what about Cam?” Jeff asked gently, not wanting to set Eric off any further.

“Cam and I used to fuck around a lot before I started seeing Tanya, especially when we were both new to the league. I told Tanya about it after we got married, because I guess the subject never really came up before. She said ‘it made her uncomfortable’, but she didn’t care, as long as it didn’t happen again. When she said ‘it’ I thought she meant with Cam, which, duh, I would never cheat on her, but apparently ‘it’ meant with a guy. She accused me of still being in love with Cam, and not loving her. She said it was disgusting to be so unfaithful. And I just bugged out, Skins, I don't know what happened. When Cam and I stopped doing....” he trailed off, "It was really hard on me, but not really on Cam, but I got over it quick because I realized it was never anything like that. It was just a stupid rookie crush," 

Speaking of stupid rookie crushes..Jeff thought, but then realized he should probably answer Eric, “That’s fucked up,” Jeff held onto Eric even tighter, finally understanding his breakdown, even if Eric still didn’t. Tanya was divorcing him because he was gay. Eric was gay. It hit Jeff like a puck to the face. “Eric, shh, it’s alright. That was really fucked up of her, but I need to ask you something important. Are you straight?”

Eric just clung to Jeff, sobbed into his neck and sighed, “I don’t think so.”

 

 

            That was pretty much how the rest of the day went, Eric and Jeff huddled together on some form of Eric’s furniture, bad TV playing in the background, Eric explaining all of his transgressions and how he thinks they ended up making him ‘separated’ from his wife. From what Jeff gathered, all of the small stuff had nothing to do with any of it. Assuming this was all 100% true, Jeff gathered that Tanya believed Eric was still in love with Cam, which according to Eric, he wasn’t. Jeff already knew that though. Eric didn’t look at Cam the way a person looks at somebody they love. Cam was one of Eric’s best friends and had been for years, he was like an extension of Eric’s brothers. Tanya just wasn’t comfortable with Eric hooking up with guys, so she brought Cam into it. Jeff had always noticed she held some pent up animosity towards Cam. This explained a lot.

            Eventually, it started to get dark out and their stomachs started to grumble. Hockey players needed a lot of food to function properly, and they had most definitely missed their calorie quotas for the day. As they milled around Eric’s huge kitchen, it seeming even bigger now that Jeff felt the emptiness of the house in his bones, sandwiches were made and eaten, and more of the story was uncovered.

            “You’re not in love with Cam, are you?”

            “No, he’s one of my best friends, but I was just so angry that she had the nerve to bring up Cam. But then later, I got to thinking, when all this happened, I started wondering how I didn’t see it all coming, and when I turned into the type of guy who A. agrees to an open relationship B. has sex with Sidney Crosby and C. loses control of his life so quickly. Then I started wondering if I maybe fell out of love with Tanya, and didn’t notice because whenever I was home it was always all about the kids, never about her. Until all of a sudden, it was all about her, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even know if I want to fight to stay with her, and that’s what scares me the most. What happened to me? Why don’t I even care about my marriage anymore?”

            “It’s not that crazy, Eric,” Jeff reassured him as they walked upstairs. Eric needed a shower, to clean him and to calm down. The steam would soothe him enough for Jeff to feel comfortable leaving him overnight by himself. Jeff could never leave Eric’s house knowing he was still recovering from an emotional breakdown. Maybe that said something about Jeff, or about his particular way of caring extra for Eric, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that, “People fall out of love all the time. Sometimes something seems like a good idea, and after you’ve had to go through it day in and day out, you realize that at some point, it just stopped working.” Jeff knew how that was. He was painfully single as of about a month ago, and in secret, he still sort of felt the sting of fucking up so much with Jessica. She was a nice girl, but something had just been off, and she knew it and was emotionally mature enough to end it when Jeff wouldn’t. He still tried to pick up in bars and stuff, he had to, otherwise the chirping would be insufferable, but it still stung.

 

            The sheets and comforter on Eric’s bed were different, a gray-blue combination that screamed “bachelor” rather than “married couple room,” and all of the pictures of him and Tanya were face down on their respective tables. “I had to change the sheets, and flip those over,” Eric said gesturing to the pictures. “I couldn’t stand her face looking at me and smelling her perfume on the sheets while I slept alone in our bed.”

            Eric seemed so vulnerable then, it was killing Jeff. “Go take a shower, man. I’ll wait here, check my email and stuff,” Jeff gestured to the ensuite bathroom as he flopped onto Eric’s “typical bachelor” unmade sheets and began to scroll through his phone.

            Freshly showered and eyes a little less red, Eric emerged about twenty minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist and hair still dripping. He turned toward his dresser and dropped his towel unceremoniously; giving Jeff a pretty nice view of something he was trying **so** hard not to look at. But **damn** , Eric had a nice ass. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t ever seen before, and he knew that, but for some reason, this time he felt like he was allowed to look. After sliding on a pair of boxers and a threadbare t-shirt, Eric slumped onto the bed next to Jeff without a word. The silence was just bordering on awkward when Eric tipped his eyed up toward Jeff and just asked, “Stay?” a signal that he still needed Jeff, needed somebody to hold him, and couldn’t bear to sleep alone again.

            He couldn’t deny Eric anything if he tried. Despite his best efforts, Jeff was too far gone, and Eric needed him. Jeff tried not to let his voice drop with a sleepy gravel when he said, “yeah,” pulled the covers over the both of them, and flipped off the light, both of them immediately clinging to each other in the dark.


End file.
